Anyone remember the Sonic OVA (The Movie)?

Mr L

Great Teacher
I felt compelled to talk about this OVA after seeing it featured on the Nostalgia Critic's latest video. It was produced by Pierrot, known these days for Tokyo Ghoul and Black Clover, and released in 1999 in the west by ADV.

I watched this quite a few times as I tended it get a lot of use out of my VHS collection. We never had premium TV and were stuck with the four basic analogue channels. The Internet still wasn't common in every home and I didn't own a home gaming system until 2001. I would often have on a video while I either played around with toys or my Game Boy' often I found myself playing the same tapes over and over.

This was my first and only anime VHS, excluding mainstream shows like Pokémon and Digimon. I remember a few of the trailers that played before the movie included some kind of Teeken anime and a show that featured two young women in combat gear who were both holding guns and painting with a pile of destruction behind then, no idea what it was! I often found myself re-watching these as I was the type of person who worried about damaging the tape through constant winding and forwarding, One detail I found odd was how none of these trailers featured any voices, just typical 90s anime background music. Perhaps they weren't confident in their dubs? That industry. Was still in its infancy so you can't exactly blame them.

Speaking of the dubbing, its fine, especially fir the time it was made. Sonic's voice fits okay even if he has a bit of a southern tinge. Could it be described as the worst of Sonic's voices? Yes but I feel he'z been fortunate enough to never have had a truky 'bad' voice over the years. Tauls' voice is rarher 'gender confused' (not the first time this would happen) and of all the performances its the only one that comes close to being truly annoying, Knuckles' is fairly bland (though still better than his Sonic Underground voice) and I'd say Robotnik's (as he was still being called at the time) actor is probably the strongest overall, giving a good blend of the more serious and goofy sides of the character we're used today. Given SEGA likely gave a lot of oversight, ADV were likely very focused on ensuring this didn't turn out badly.

I always liked the animation and art direction for the environments. Robotropolis has a particularly nice vibe and I greatly enjoy has theg reoresent SonIc's speed. A pity they had to go with weird human-animal hybrids for the original characters, including that of the hedgehog's female admirer (an idea SEGA wouldn't let die!) This OVA was the closest representation we had of classic-era Sonic (as the western cartoons of the era really did their own thing) until the recent Sonic Mania shorts.?

The plot is both simple and confusing' Sonic fights Metal Sonic, sounds straightforward right? Unfortunately the movie like to exposit tons of information on plot elements that didn't need to exist in the first place such as having the two lands split into two dimensions (and none of these things are anywhere in the source material).

I actualky really enjoy the music in this anime. Its very 90s but I honestly feel such music suits Sonic perfectly with it being as dated as the character himself. The end credits theme 'Look-a-like' is an interesting one. This was the first 'ingrish' J-Pop song I was ever exposed to. I can hear what the lyrics are going for but the verses get rather bizarre and you'll probably want to look those words up as the singers pronunciation leaves something to be desired. Its kind of weirdly charming in the way sometimes these songs are and the tune is decent at least.

Anyway, that's my ramble on the Sonic OVA/Movie. If you have any memories of it yourself, please share. I'm well aware I may have just wasted jy time but oh well.
 
I remember this, I also remember it had a UK release back in the day. The art style was very similar to sonic CDs cut scenes which in turn inspired the recent sonic mania episodes.
 
I remember this, I also remember it had a UK release back in the day. The art style was very similar to sonic CDs cut scenes which in turn inspired the recent sonic mania episodes.

I remember ordering it being sokd through the UK Sonic Comic.

IN Sonic Mania, when Tails is flying the Tornado, the aviator gear he wears comes from the OVA.
 
the UK Sonic Comic.
Wow, I used to collect that. 😃

I know I'm digressing from the topic of the thread here, but my favourite storyline in that comic's run had to be the whole "Brotherhood of Metallix" (Metal Sonic) saga. It arose out of master script writer Nigel Kitching's adaptation of Sega's 32X game Chaotix.

Nigel Kitching and expert artist Richard Elson: those two were always the dream duo for me.
 
Wow, I used to collect that. 😃

I know I'm digressing from the topic of the thread here, but my favourite storyline in that comic's run had to be the whole "Brotherhood of Metallix" (Metal Sonic) saga. It arose out of master script writer Nigel Kitching's adaptation of Sega's 32X game Chaotix.

Nigel Kitching and expert artist Richard Elson: those two were always the dream duo for me.

I liked the comic fine but struggled to get it regularly. I remember a storyline involving a fight between Metal Sonic and Super Sonic and how the latter turned slightly insane. And I had no idea that there were a completely different set of comics in America until I got the Mega Collection.

I wonder who owns those old strips? If they compiled them in an anthology I'd bet it would sell, you'd likely have interest from overseas too.
 
I remember a storyline involving a fight between Metal Sonic and Super Sonic and how the latter turned slightly insane.
Yeah, that was another genius creation of Nigel Kitching. In his version, Super Sonic was something that Sonic mutated into when under extreme stress, and he became an uncontrollable force of destruction.

There was even a storyline where a freak occurrence caused Super Sonic to become split off from Sonic and become a separate being. Our gang managed to trap him inside this special frame, which seemed to have frozen him in time, but all it had done in actuality was to slow his escape down to a crawl. That was a tense storyline.

It eventually resulted in a whimsical spinoff strip featuring the low-key, almost slice-of-life exploits of an amnesiac Super Sonic.

I liked the comic fine but struggled to get it regularly.
Funnily enough, even in the UK it could be hit-or-miss where you could find it. I missed issue 18 because of that; that always kinda needled me. 😅

I had a look around online a few years back to see if I could find some scans or something, but that drew a blank.

I wonder who owns those old strips? If they compiled them in an anthology I'd bet it would sell, you'd likely have interest from overseas too.
The comic was published by Fleetway at the time, if I recall correctly. It apparently found a second life within recent times as an online comic, but I'm not sure whether that's still going.

But yeah, I'm sure you're right that there'd be interest in it. I for one would be interested in it as a curio, and for a chance to revisit the Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic CD storylines — more memorable Kitching classics. ☺️

I gave my entire collection (minus issue 18, of course 😅) to a charity shop years and years ago during a clear-out. There just simply isn't the room for everything.

(If there was, I'd maybe still even have my old Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles comics from way back in the day as well! 😝
Funnily enough, Richard Elson used to draw some strips in that too; I recognised his art style when it first appeared in Sonic the Comic instantly. His style lent itself better to Sonic, I thought, where he became the top artist.)
 
Comics like that were the closest we had to the kind of action/adventure comics common in Americ. The only comic I was ever able to regularly get when I was young was 'The Beano', polar opposite kind of thing.
 
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